Overcoming Burnout in Addiction Recovery

Recovery can be a challenging and exhausting process, leading to burnout. In this episode, our podcast hosts, David Livingston, LMFT, and Dwight Hurst, LPC discuss burnout and how it relates to addiction recovery. Burnout can occur in any profession or personal life, and it often results from a lack of balance and self-care. When people are in the midst of addiction recovery, they may become so focused on their treatment that they forget to take care of themselves in other areas of their life. This can lead to burnout, which can in turn make it more difficult to stay committed to recovery.

Livingston and Hurst share their experiences working with clients who have experienced burnout and offer tips for preventing and overcoming it. They emphasize the importance of self-care and balance and suggest that clients should take a step back from treatment activities if they start to feel overwhelmed. They also discuss the concept of “working through” burnout rather than “overcoming” it, and the importance of finding a better balance rather than becoming bulletproof to ever being burned out.

Waismann Method’s podcast hosts emphasize that overcoming burnout is not about becoming bulletproof and never experiencing burnout again, but rather about learning to manage it and finding a healthy balance between caring for others and taking care of oneself. They also touch on the importance of being able to care and not care, and how this balance can actually make us more effective in helping others. Through their conversation, Dwight and David highlight the need for self-care and taking breaks to avoid burnout, as well as the importance of recognizing when you need help and seeking it out.

Dwight Hurst, LPC: Hello and welcome back to Addiction, Recovery and Mental Health, a podcast by Waismann Method Opioid Treatment Specialists. I’m your co-host, Dwight Hurst, and joined today, as always, by David Livingston. And well, and nobody else. Just us today. We have to excuse Clare. She is traveling right now. And so we wish her a good time and bon voyage and all that. And it just leaves David. It leaves you and me to get up to our shenanigans.

David Livingston, LMFT: I’m sure we’ll figure it out one way or another.

Dwight Hurst, LPC: Yeah, well, we’ll see. You know, it’ll. As a therapist friend of mine once put it, people talk about it’ll all work out all right in the end. And he said, I don’t know, but it’ll definitely work out somehow. So I think, you know, in the spirit of that, we’ve got it down today.

David Livingston, LMFT: I couldn’t agree more.

Dwight Hurst, LPC: Well, as we are always guided by questions regarding treatment and addiction recovery, we’ve got an interesting one today, which is how do we overcome burnout in addiction recovery? And as everybody knows, this recovery process can be a challenging one and it’s exhausting often. And it just the process of engaging in treatment can lead to burnout all by itself. And so we’re going to dive into that a little bit today and see if we can come up with some things that are helpful in recognizing and overcoming some of those steps. So, yeah, let’s dive into that. David, what are some of your initial reactions to this question of how do we avoid burnout? And also I guess we should define and get into what that is and some of the elements that lead to burnout as well, huh?

David Livingston, LMFT: I think so. And are you talking about burnout from like family members, um, individuals who are in their own recovery process and, you know, attending meetings and therapy and are starting to feel burned out or something like that because the idea of burnout can cover so many different elements, even health care workers, you know, and therapists or whomever can be an aspect of it. So burnout is a is an interesting thing. What do you think?

Dwight Hurst, LPC: I you know, as I read this question originally, I was thinking about myself. It hit me as kind of like with those that are going through treatment. But you bring up a great point and perhaps our discussion might be able to touch on some different elements of this as well as in, as you were talking, the thought that came to my mind was how does burnout affect treatment? And all three of those that you mentioned with an individual going through their own addiction treatment, a family member, caretaker, supporter. And then also you get the professionals involved. And I would say some of the research I’ve been reading and the news stories and things I’m reading indicate that we’ve got a in some corners of the health care field. It’s it’s up to 50% of people that are burned out to the point where they may not even continue in the industry. Right. So I’d say I’d say all three of those are touched by burnout. And we can just kind of dive into the different aspects and see what we get through today. But there may be even enough meat on the bone here for another for other episodes, too, as we get into that.

David Livingston, LMFT: You bet. I was listening to a podcast and I’m sorry, but I can’t remember who whose podcast it was or what the story was, but it was on burnout and it was two basically two medical doctors who are also PhDs. So these are MD PhDs who were colleagues and both ran major hospitals, I think back East. And again, that part of it, I remember correctly. So this was during COVID. So there was tremendous burnout of nurses, doctors because of all the pressures and the amount of people who are sick. And they were trying to figure out, you know, what to do. And they were because they were both PhDs, they were looking at the literature that had been done on this. And so they were going back and researching it, and they actually found that there was a fair amount of research on it. And what they came up with, which was kind of shocking to me in one level, but made perfect sense to me on pretty much every other level. And and in some ways kind of hits all of the groups that we’re talking about. So what they found was actually time off wasn’t what helped people with burnout.

David Livingston, LMFT: It wasn’t taking vacations, it wasn’t other sort of things like that that was most effective. They actually found that the thing that was by far the most effective thing to end. Burnout was caring. So that actually, counterintuitively, what happens to people when they’re burned out is they stop caring. So once you stop caring, you are you’re doing something that what you’re not necessarily aware of is that you don’t want to be there. You’re in conflict in some way internally, and that conflict will tire you and burn you out because you’re somewhere that you don’t want to be. And so what happens is, is that and I think this is indicative of successful treatment for people who are going through treatment is that when somebody is into it really wants to be there, is invested, it feels right to them and they care. They don’t burn out. And actually everybody gets better, right? The people they’re working with, the people around them. And so so that’s that turns out to be a fairly complicated thing. And we can get into that. And I’m interested in your thoughts, but maybe that’s a place to start.

Dwight Hurst, LPC: That’s a good I mean, it is a good place to start because that’s a direct effect that that affects people because one and it’s a funny piece of research that people sometimes scratch their heads at, but it’s an important piece of research when they study curative factors of therapy, all types of therapy. There’s these elements they find, which is, interestingly enough, like the third most important part of treatment is what the what your your counselor or therapist does. It’s that’s third down the list. The second one is if you have a good working relationship, it’s more important than what they do. But the one the number one best predictor of of treatment is whether or not you receive it. And now some people go, well, of course. Right. But that goes into some of the elements of cost of care, availability of insurance and money, and then also the availability if if boy, if I have to wait six months to start treatment, you know, where am I going to be with my initial oomph to get into it as that ebbs and flows. So yeah, this is a this is directly themost important part of whether or not you receive treatment is if it’s available. You know, and that’s a great measure that you mentioned, which is not caring or the caring goes down, goes away. That’s a great measure for how burned out or close to burnout I could be. As you know, it’s even just giving myself a little bit of a measure. How much have I been invested in my work and caring lately? Maybe even just a 0 to 10 could give me an indication as a provider, where am I at as far as risk for burnout? Right?

David Livingston, LMFT: It’s a complicated thing. I can tell you, having done a number of different things in my earlier life, I’ve been, you know, working as a psychotherapist for coming up on three decades. So I’ve been doing this a long time. But having done things prior to that where they weren’t the right things for me and then finding this profession that I have not felt that I felt like this is where I want to be. And I don’t even know why exactly I was. I was watching a documentary on the great basketball star Bill Russell, and one of the things he said was nothing great is accomplished without enthusiasm. It has if you are enthusiastic about what you’re doing, I think everybody gets better. I think you stay it. It it has to be genuine. You can’t it’s not like a false self, kind of like imposed positivity idea, which I don’t believe in. You know, it has to be actually just a genuine thing that just, you know, comes. But when that’s there, I think everybody gets better. And, you know, and I think in terms of treatment, when you find that’s happening and any treatment, something good is happening, that that’s probably and it’s kind of like what you said, like it’s when there’s a good working relationship. Well, a good working relationship is two people who care and there’s enough enthusiasm.

Dwight Hurst, LPC: It’s an interesting thing, as we’re saying, you know, when you think about that caring and enthusiasm, we think about treatment professionals. But I could think of it equally applies to someone involved in their own treatment as well as a support system. If you feel that that care that I like, I like the word enthusiasm attached to that too, because I think that even breaks the definition down a little further is if you’re enthusiastic, if there’s some passion, and I guess we should say that there’s a natural ebb and flow to that level of caring and enthusiasm, right? That we shouldn’t panic if it’s if it takes a dip necessarily. But then we need to know that. But we do need to monitor, right? Monitor meaning how much we care. How much We’re enthusiastic.

David Livingston, LMFT: Yeah, well, yeah. Yeah. You like. You’re taking people. You can’t. You can’t be taking people to lunch. That’s right. But I think if you’re where you want to be and you’re, you know, there’s ambivalence in everything and people go to come to treatment, have their own ambivalence. And I think that they count on their doctors, their nurses, their therapists to have worked through their own ambivalence. And when they’re when and this seems I see it with my you know, with my kids in school, you can tell the teachers who are passionate about what they’re doing. And really it’s coming from kind of that’s where they want to be. It’s the right thing for them. It’s a natural fit and it changes the dynamic with many of the students. And I think it’s the same in any learning process.

Dwight Hurst, LPC: Yeah, as you mentioned, getting some of that back, I guess we I’m thinking about how to do that. Nobody wakes up one morning and says, I want to stop caring about my industry. I want to stop caring about those I help. It’s a process of burnout that kind of creeps up on us. And sometimes I think we don’t notice until we’re we’re we’ve fallen off of that kind of cliff of burnout, and it can be difficult to climb back up. Like, do you think, first of all, is that the task at that point is the the goal to try to get the enthusiasm back? Basically?

David Livingston, LMFT: Are you talking about for like a clinician or are you talking about for a for somebody who’s in their own treatment?

Dwight Hurst, LPC: Well, let’s start let’s start there with the professionals, the clinicians. If someone catches themself in that spot and they notice, boy, I don’t I don’t have that caring anymore. That’s a good that’s a good point is to stop and question. Well, why not? What happened? Right.

David Livingston, LMFT: Yeah. And that could be that could be a big question. Sometimes things happen in people’s lives personally that make it difficult to be present in the way they may need to. There can be other things going on that that affect that capacity, you know, that have to get sort of dealt with or may limit an individual. But in my experience with clinicians, with doctors and therapists and with myself, I have not experienced and and I’ve I’ve had a busy practice and involvement for for a long time. I have not experienced burnout and I’ve done different things where I experienced burnout really quickly because it was not where I wanted to be and not the right thing for me. And so I think that’s an element that happens. So sometimes people are in it because they they need the work or they, you know, they believe this is going to be a good job for them or good career and then they may get into it. And then it’s it’s kind of they’re stuck or this or that that happens. I can usually feel it when I’m working with, you know, a doctor or somebody who I’m relying on fairly quickly.

Dwight Hurst, LPC: You know, it can really be tricky when people do hit that, because if the answer to that question is I don’t like what I’m doing, man, there’s number one, there’s a lot of very specific training to get into the a medical right role. You’re talking years and years and and the the degrees that people earn, they don’t necessarily equate to another field. And then there’s just the dynamic of not knowing. I was just joking with somebody the other day where I was asking what they did with their job and I said, you know, I don’t really know what a lot of what other jobs are like. I’m exaggerating a little, but it’s like to me, it’s like anybody who’s not in my field, I guess is in sales or does something with money. I don’t know. You know what I mean? There does come there’s a myriad of careers out there, but being very specifically invested in one that takes a lot of your energy and time, it’s not so simple. If you decide, Oh, I don’t think this is working, I need to switch something. So then you get people stuck or feeling stuck and not necessarily feeling like they have the option to change. And sometimes whether or not they need to change that. Still feeling stuck is a bad feeling.

David Livingston, LMFT: It’s really bad. And you know, just to kind of broaden it, I think that we’re pressuring people to make decisions about careers and things too quickly before they’ve sort of explored and discovered who they are.

Dwight Hurst, LPC: And they hit that in junior high now really hard, like you need to have a career plan before high school. Wow. Right.

David Livingston, LMFT: You don’t know who you are. You do not choose who you are. You discover it primarily. If I had to be an engineer, I’d be I would burn out in a day and they’d. Fire me in an hour because I’m not oriented as such. You know, that’s a tremendous amount of thinking. All right. And I think the field of psychotherapy is a far more intuitive and perceptual process. Now there’s thinking going on in everything, but I don’t think it’s oriented internally that way. And so part of it is just realizing sort of what your strengths are. But a lot of what happens when people are coping with their own treatment or whatever, they’re trying to figure this out and they’re relying on this being sorted out in the professionals that they’re relying on, especially their therapists. And if this is or if this is sorted out in them, makes it much easier to help sort it out. And the person you’re working with because they’re going to be sorting out a whole bunch of things, right? Who am I? Why am I, you know, why am I struggling and coping in this way? You know, what are the conflicts and deficits that are contributing to my need to cope and what paths and decisions? And you can’t pick passing decisions until you have a clear sense of kind of who you are in the process. And then then as you start to move in those directions, it will tend to take hold a lot better.

Dwight Hurst, LPC: It reminded me of an interview that I heard a long time ago. Must be a long time ago, because he died a while back. But the comedian Bob Newhart, I heard him interviewed. And before he became an entertainer, he was an accountant. And he was saying this interview that he said, you know, my idea of accounting was always, you know, if you get within 20 or 30 bucks of it and it’s pretty good and then and that never caught on in any of his jobs as an accounting theory. And so you know there is that yeah that self-discovery of finding out and realizing where we’re at you know and I feel like there’s a there’s a balance. It’s hard to get a healthy balance because we tend to swing back and forth. I think societally I like very much to see people nowadays some of the values of a career are there’s kind of slanted towards empowerment for the employee and the individual to say, you know, if you’re if you feel stuck, if you’re over here and it’s not right for you, don’t stay, do something else. And then but on the other hand, I think that we can overdo this second one. But the idea of, well, you know, maybe the problem isn’t that I need to run from one thing to another. Maybe there’s something here I can find and discover. And I think working a little bit with both is very important. We can air too far in one or the other and run around chasing a dream that we don’t know what it is. Or on the other hand, we can just stay at something because we think, well, it’s just ride, I guess, ride this out the rest of my life. You know, either one of those in the extreme I think can be unhealthy.

David Livingston, LMFT: Help me understand that in the extreme of meaning what?

Dwight Hurst, LPC: Well, I think, you know, if I’m not happy and I believe I should just jump to something else that can be empowering if it’s balanced, but also it can lead to me going, you know, I mean, wherever you go, there you are. Right? And if I have unhappiness that isn’t just tied to what I’m doing, then I may hop careers a bunch of times before I realize that, oh, I’m just I’m depressed or I have some other needs, right? That don’t have to do with what I do for a job necessarily. And I guess I’m projecting a little I know that I’m I have bipolar disorder and I had some a lot of changes, not as much in in industry, but in jobs. And I look back and I’m like, you know, I don’t have I’m not going to claim I have like some deep regret that haunts me or anything. But there’s a couple of jobs that I got burned out on that if I was back then, if I’d been diagnosed and I had my medication that I have now, I might still be there and I might be happy, you know? So it’s kind of like trying to find that real answer of, do do I need to jump ship? I might or do I need to figure myself out first? You know, my health out first. Does that make more sense?

David Livingston, LMFT: Perfectly, because you have to ask why. If something’s not working, you know, why is it working? And you have to answer that. You know, I remember I was talking with a mother one time I was working with, and she was telling me that her son was really unhappy and and he was having trouble with finding friends and this and that. And they’d been at a few different schools and then all of a sudden they changed to this one school. And he came home one day and he said, Mom, I finally found my people and that was it. And so you don’t always know until you find it as part of the problem. And you just kind of know that something doesn’t feel right. And so I think it really helps. I mean, one of. Of the things that is helpful in therapy is to have somebody who can really see you well and really kind of see where who you are and mirror that back and have a sense of what’s. What’s going on. And it’s not just diagnostics in terms of what’s wrong, although that’s that’s a critical part of it. Like you’re bringing up like if you know that there’s something wrong, you won’t think it’s one thing when it’s when it could be could really be something else that has to get dealt with and treated. And when that is, you’ll kind of know how that affects these other things that you could easily mistake for being the thing that’s not right. And so it takes some you got to hang in there and work at it. I can’t remember who it was. Someone said that that the only way people get better is in long-term intensive good therapy. I’m not sure that isn’t right because it takes some time to kind of. You can’t just glance off things. I mean, you might get some things right, but, you know, there’s a good chance you’re going to miss a bunch, too.

Dwight Hurst, LPC: Yeah, and I agree with that. You know, sometimes having that guidance from an outside person that that transitions into the question that pops in my head now is what about if you’re that person who is receiving treatment for addiction and, you know, starting to have that burnout and that is this a question often comes up for those receiving treatment. Is this working and is this for me? And particularly, that could be particularly tricky because jumping out of treatment is generally not a good idea. If I’m in it and it doesn’t seem like it’s working and I’m burning out of treatment, what approach do we take to answer the question there? Because if it’s not a safe option to just stop treatment, and I would say, I don’t know. Let’s let’s go ahead and I’m sure that nothing is universal, but just stopping treatment when I have a medical problem is is going to almost always be a poor choice. Right. Well.

David Livingston, LMFT: I think it depends. If you’re in treatment and it feels like it’s not working, it’s not going anywhere, you’re burning out, then there’s a good chance it’s not working. You’re not going anywhere and you are burning out. I tend to take people at their word and their feelings. I think usually that’s right. So I think, you know, since we’re talking about therapy, if you’re in therapy, should be telling your therapist this. Listen, I don’t feel like this is working. I don’t feel like I’m getting it right. And then that if they are able to help you from that point, you’re at a you’re at a crossroads. And, you know, and you you bring it up, they should either be able to help you through that impasse and help understand what that is about. And if they’re unable to do that, probably there’s a good chance you do need to find someone who can.

Dwight Hurst, LPC: Yeah, that’s that’s a good point. So it’s more pivoting and looking at how am I getting help and how am I engaging with that. And I do think that as I’m saying this, it’s funny. I think my daughter is a huge advocate for that kind of thing because of her own experiences. She unapologetically and without fear. She’ll tell her friends that and people that she comes in contact with, Hey, you know, therapy is helpful, medication is helpful. Don’t be ashamed of yourself. She stands up for that all the time. And, you know, I’ve heard her say this where it’s like somebody told me it didn’t work for them. And so I was like, well, try again with someone else. You know, I kind of, you know, she’s very blunt, but not giving up. The idea of being healthy is essentially how I think of that. Don’t give up on it, because then you’re giving up on yourself, right?

David Livingston, LMFT: Absolutely. It’s often people are getting off of opioids or other things and they’re like, No, I don’t want to ever take anything again. And I’m like, Listen, every time you drink water, you’re putting a chemical in your body. And and the question isn’t whether or not you’re going to put chemicals into your body. You’re always going to all your food is just turns into some sort of chemical. The question is, is it good for you? You know, does it promote health like you’re saying? Just I mean, that’s what you’re talking about. So we’ve got to think it through a little more deeply. And and the whole question really is, is does it add to our does it allow us to function better, feel better? And all things considered, is this truly healthy for me? And if you know and then you answer the question.

Dwight Hurst, LPC: Yeah. When we get into that, I think that it’s important to also remember that ducking out of treatment can also be affected as a symptom of addiction because. Addiction, any health problem, We can look at it like it doesn’t want to go away. Right. And so burnout can be fueled by the symptoms, even whether the symptom of denial or the symptom of basically the continued symptoms of addiction. Right. And so that’s that’s something to be cautious of and becomes an important part of that question of why why am I burned out? Is there an element of like fear? Is there an element of I’m afraid of failing, I’m afraid of not being able to, especially if I’ve tried before and things haven’t worked. I know one of the things that Claire shares a lot on here is the sentiment of don’t feel like you failed treatment. If treatment didn’t work for you. It’s just as likely that treatment failed. And but that doesn’t mean we don’t try again. Right. But it could be scary.

David Livingston, LMFT: Well, it can. And I would say one of the biggest reasons people don’t get better or get help is they’ve had 1 or 2 bad experiences and then they give up on it. And I’ve had many, many good and bad experiences getting help and all kinds of directions my with everything. Um, and so you, you need to persist. You need to talk to people who you trust and, you know, can really give you sort of well thought out recommendations and, and then it helps to read and research if something’s going on with myself or one of my kids in terms of an injury or something, I’ll research it some first. So I have some just some understanding. And so I think you have to be very active in your treatment. And again, that’s that kind of that enthusiasm. It’s a way of approaching. There’s always going to be things in life that go well and things that don’t go well. And, you know, to be able to approach the things that aren’t working or an injury or a problem in this direction with some enthusiasm and some curiosity and some persistence, I think it’s necessary.

Dwight Hurst, LPC: You mentioned curiosity there. And one of the questions I think this naturally leads into is how do I stoke the flames of enthusiasm and try to reengage when I’m burned out? Curiosity is a pretty big part of that.

David Livingston, LMFT: I guess it comes back to caring. We all have these phones we can pick up and the amount of information that is at our fingertips is just unbelievable. You can type something in, you can type symptoms in and you can start to research things. I mean, you can get information about anything quickly. So bring your curiosity and to yourselves and to your life and it’ll help you care more. The more curious you are, the more you learn. I think it becomes kind of a positive feedback loop.

Dwight Hurst, LPC: Do you think burnout comes from connected to that lack of caring about what I’m doing? I’m thinking about the lack of self-care. I wonder if that contributes to it. Am I taking care of myself throughout, whether career or as we’re talking now, treatment process? Do you see that as related? I feel like self-care is probably a big part of usually when we burn out, we’re lacking in that, right?

David Livingston, LMFT: And honestly, it’s a lot of what good treatment is. Think about when you have gone to see anybody, gone to see your doctor, a therapist, your mechanic, and they take the time to show you what’s wrong. They really spend the time to help you and help you understand it. They go through the process. It builds trust in them. You you have a sense of them taking the time and caring about what it is that the problem that you’ve brought to them and that experience helps you care about yourself because all of a sudden what you get from the outside in is that, Oh, I’m, I’m valuable enough to this person that they’re going to actually take the time and the interest and the care to really be helpful to me. And that is the basis of it, you know, And by the way, it starts when we’re an infant and the baby’s crying and mother or dad or whomever comes in and changes it. And you’re right, it’s from the outside in. And then when there’s enough from the outside in that’s been internalized, then the caring can come more from the inside out. And then it becomes and then you can it reverberates back and forth where, you know, you make sure and you persist to get the care because you’ve had enough experience that you can get good care. So what happens is, is when people haven’t had enough experience of good care, they’ll give up really quickly.

Dwight Hurst, LPC: Yeah, when we experience some of that, if I find that I’m burned out sometimes one of the worst things, just as we’ve talked about when we talk about some. Port systems. And reaching out is we don’t reach out for various reasons. Sometimes we’re too burned out because part of our treatment success is reaching out. So maybe we’re burned out on reaching out. Right? But it’s interesting how sometimes the thing that I’m burned out on is also kind of part of the cure, right? If I’m in treatment, do I make my burnout part of my treatment plan? Do I share that with either my clinician or my support system? Or if people are in a support group like a 12-step group or something, do I tell someone, Hey, I’m burning out and I need help with that before we spend time talking about, oh, here’s some more relapse prevention. Here’s more this, here’s more of that. If I’m burned out, we’re just kind of hitting a brick wall. And we might not know why until I unless I’m sharing that. Right.

David Livingston, LMFT: But again, what’s the cause of burnout? I mean, you can be just doing too much that that is possible where it’s suggested sometimes when people are part of a 12-step program that they do 90, 90 meetings in 90 days. But maybe you wake up at 5:30 and work till six and you’ve got two kids at home and 90 meetings in 90 days. And I’ve been told this before, they’re like, Yeah, I’m driving home after the meeting and I’m thinking about using before I get home because I’m so exhausted and I’m like, maybe do two meetings a week and see how that is because it’s too much. And while for some people 90 meetings in 90 days might be the right amount, for others it’s going to be too much and on and on so that you can get exhausted.

Dwight Hurst, LPC: Sometimes the excitement of getting into something new as well. I’ve noticed even when people at first are liking that kind of thing, I’ve known people who are like, Oh, you know, every time I’m in the car I’m listening to addiction podcasts, I’m reading addiction books, I’m going to the a lot of meetings and even, you know, paying for extra, you know, doing like two therapy sessions a week and, you know, AA group every day and all that. And I often, even when people like that, I tend to try to talk about let’s be careful here, because you don’t want to wake up one day and say, I am so sick of all this, and it’s an all or nothing process at this point.

David Livingston, LMFT: Yeah, right. You know, I mean, look, that’s a better obsession than, um, you know, a lot of others. But sooner or later that’s going to get pared down. And, you know, the other side of things is going to show up and parsing that and trying to sort of move out of that a little bit and kind of have more varied needs along the way is a treatment. So, you know, I think a lot of time like you’re talking about doing all of those activities towards treatment, that’s a ton of energy, a ton of intensity. And the idea in many ways around a treatment is that you just spread that around into taking care of your exercising and seeing friends and family and and your work and, you know, maybe some other hobbies or things you like to do and all of a sudden spread around in a, in a balance. Um, and you have a very active, interesting life. Um, and so, you know, and I think you can reframe that into something like you’re talking about where all of that energy is put into one thing, but sooner or later it’s got to get expanded into kind of a more varied life probably.

Dwight Hurst, LPC: So we’re really looking at some of the overcoming burnout is like so many other things. Overcoming is maybe tweaking the concept of success here. To say overcoming might be better described as working through, right? Of expecting that we’re getting back to a better balance rather than there’s no such thing as, you know, solving it by becoming bulletproof to ever being burned out. It’s it’s a working process for sure.

David Livingston, LMFT: And to be able to really care and then to not care. Right. And to be able to care when caring is what’s needed and what’s what you’re there for. And then to be able to play, take a break, forget about things, have your mind to yourself and you know, so that there is a balance even with that. You know, I read an article recently from a therapist who burned out who really had no understanding of that concept of you can actually, you know, it’s how healthy it is to care and not care and that it’s necessary. And that kind of knowing what is yours and what is somebody else’s allows you to actually be more effective with them. And we’re going.

Dwight Hurst, LPC: To leave it there for today, please. Join us next episode as we delve deeper into mental health, opioid dependence and addiction recovery. As always, we’re so grateful to have you all joining us. This podcast is a production of Waismann Method Treatment Specialists and is hosted by Dwight Hurst, Clare Waismann and David Livingston. Our music is the song Medical by Clean Mind Sounds, and the show is produced by Popped Collar Productions. You can follow along with information about treatment and the Waismann method by going to opiates.com or follow us anywhere on social media at opiates. And today for David Livingston and myself, Dwight Hurst, we’ve been glad to be here to share our thoughts and impressions with you. Remember to keep asking questions because when you ask questions, you can find answers. And whenever you find answers, you find hope. Have a great week. We’ll be back again soon.